OP-TEC Curriculum & Resources

OP-TEC has developed program planning and text/laboratory materials to support education and training for future and current photonics technicians. Check out the OP-TEC Store to order curriculum materials and teaching resources.

OP-TEC Newsletter – September 2017

Classes for photonics technician students are underway; a new year has begun at our OPCN colleges. The articles in this issue about Guadalupe Esparza and Justin Jenson encourage all of us who are involved in educating photonics technicians. These examples represent the potential for our work to bring rewarding careers to deserving students.

Many of your new students will need that “extra help” to fully understand and use the essential mathematics required of technicians. I urge you to consider the resources OP-TEC offers for student remediation in mathematics (see article).

The first article in this newsletter is a reminder of the NSF/ATE grant opportunities that are available to you to receive financial support for your program. If you can’t make the October 5th deadline then begin discussions and preparation for next year’s submission. The support you receive from the OP-TEC, LASER-TEC and MPEC centers also comes from our NSF/ATE grants, but several colleges teaching photonics have also received project grants. You should consider competing for these grants. Articles on the work of LASER-TEC and MPEC show the effectiveness of our regional center leadership.

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-1303732.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.